Online Video
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video available
free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

A New Sponsor and a New Design for the Super Dome
A friend in New Orleans sent a message that Hershey Corporation will be the
proud sponsor of the rebuilt Super Dome in New Orleans. It will be
redesigned in silver with twisted foil at the top to make it resemble a
Hershey's Kiss that is appealing to the Mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin.

Who speaks for God?The Mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, is in
trouble for comments he made . . . He said God is sending hurricanes to
America because he is mad at us (for the war in Iraq).
And today Pat Robertson said, "Hey I speak for God, not you."Jay Leno (as quoted in Time
Magazine, January 30, 2006, Page 19)

New Search Engine in FranceThe French have launched their own version of
Google called Quarero. You just type in the subject you're interested
in, and Quaero refuses to look it up for you.Ann Poehler on Saturday Night
Live (as quoted in Time Magazine, January 30, 2006, Page 19)

Man apologizes for fathering 3 million Irish menA new study has found that 3 million Irish men can
trace their ancestry back to just one man (actually this is true
as reported in a previous Tidbit). In his defense,
the man said he'd been drinking.Conan O'Brien (as quoted
in Time Magazine, January 30, 2006, Page 19)

Old folks should practice walking like penguinsThe three penguins are part of a University of
Houston study researching the mechanics of penguin movement in an effort to
help humans with balance and walking problems. According to Max Kurz, a
biomechanics professor and study leader, human therapy regimens are at least
several years away, but researchers hope to have their initial results
published within the next year. Rachel Metz, "Walk This Way," Wired News,
January 24, 2006 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/medtech/0,70053-0.html?tw=wn_tophead_2

Did Saddam really hide WMDs in Syria?The man who served as the no. 2 official in Saddam
Hussein's air force says Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria
before the war by loading the weapons into civilian aircraft in which the
passenger seats were removed. The Iraqi general, Georges Sada, makes the
charges in a new book, "Saddam's Secrets," released this week. He detailed
the transfers in an interview yesterday with The New York Sun.
Ira Stoll, "Iraq's WMD Secreted in Syria, Sada Says," The New York Sun,
January 26, 2006 ---
http://www.nysun.com/article/26514

U.K. Lobbying in the U.S. --- $165 millionBritish companies have spent more than $165 million (£93.7 million) since
1998 with an American lobbying industry that is being described by US
Democrats as “part of a poison tree of corruption”. This week both the
Republicans and the Democrats have announced proposals to clean up
Washington lobbying after the scandal over Jack Abramoff, who pleaded guilty
to using gifts of money, lavish meals and foreign trips to buy political
influence. Although British lobbying represents less than 10 per cent of
this vast network’s earnings, British spending in 2004 totalled almost $30
million....According to Alex Knott, the political editor of the Centre for
Public Integrity, British lobbying in Washington was higher than for any
other country, and was more than the total spent by 35 American states. The
highest spenders were GlaxoSmithKline ($32.4 million), BP ($26.8 million),
HSBC ($23.8 million), Reed Elsevier ($12.5 million) and Reuters ($12.2
million). Defence manufacturers, such as Rolls Royce, have, Mr Knott
suggested, obtained particularly good value for money. Open Access News 1/23/06 TimesOnline.com 1/20/06 ---
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-2000869,00.html
As reported in Scholarly Communication blog from the University of
Illinois ---
http://www.library.uiuc.edu/blog/scholcomm/

Researchers now know that breast cancer is
actually a number of different diseases. That discovery has led to the
development of several new treatments that target specific types of
tumors in the breast.

One of the most promising is a pill called
Lapatinib, potentially more effective than Herceptin because it inhibits
the growth of two proteins in certain cancer cells, while Herceptin
affects only one.

"What a drug like Lapatinib is doing once it's
inside the cancer cell is putting on the brakes," said Dr. Eric Winer,
chief of the breast oncology center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
in Boston.

Since it attacks just the cancer cells, there
are fewer side effects.

Researchers are also optimistic about another
drug, Avastin, which has already prolonged the lives of patients with
advanced colon cancer.

In breast cancer trials, Avastin has been
effective at choking off the blood supply that tumors need to grow and
spread. It is now being tested on women who are newly diagnosed.

Continued in article

Academe is threatened by the twin dangers of fossilization and
scholasticism
(of three types: tedium, high tech, and radical chic): The shift from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft.

“Knowledge and competence increasingly
developed out of the internal dynamics of esoteric
disciplines rather than within the context of shared
perceptions of public needs,” writes Bender. “This is not to
say that professionalized disciplines or the modern service
professions that imitated them became socially
irresponsible. But their contributions to society began to
flow from their own self-definitions rather than from a
reciprocal engagement with general public discourse.”

Now, there is a definite note of
sadness in Bender’s narrative – as there always tends to
be in accounts of the shift from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft.Yet it is also clear that the
transformation from civic to disciplinary professionalism
was necessary.

“The new disciplines offered
relatively precise subject matter and procedures,” Bender
concedes, “at a time when both were greatly confused. The
new professionalism also promised guarantees of competence —
certification — in an era when criteria of intellectual
authority were vague and professional performance was
unreliable.”

But in the epilogue to Intellect
and Public Life, Bender suggests that the process
eventually went too far. “The risk now is precisely the
opposite,” he writes. “Academe is threatened by the twin
dangers of fossilization and scholasticism (of three types:
tedium, high tech, and radical chic). The agenda for the
next decade, at least as I see it, ought to be the opening
up of the disciplines, the ventilating of professional
communities that have come to share too much and that have
become too self-referential.”

The above quotation does not contain beginning and ending parts
of the article

I repeat and lament the sad state of the
accountancy academy as reflected in the following quotation from a
referee that closed the gate on publishing a paper of a very close
friend of mine:

I quote:

*************

1. The paper provides
specific recommendations for things that accounting academics should
be doing to make the accounting profession better. However (unless
the author believes that academics' time is a free good) this would
presumably take academics' time away from what they are currently
doing. While following the author's advice might make the accounting
profession better, what is being made worse? In other words, suppose
I stop reading current academic research and start reading news
about current developments in accounting standards. Who is made
better off and who is made worse off by this reallocation of my
time? Presumably my students are marginally better off, because I
can tell them some new stuff in class about current accounting
standards, and this might possibly have some limited benefit on
their careers. But haven't I made my colleagues in my department
worse off if they depend on me for research advice, and haven't I
made my university worse off if its academic reputation suffers
because I'm no longer considered a leading scholar? Why does making
the accounting profession better take precedence over everything
else an academic does with their time?

**************

My bottom line conclusion is that the referee
acting superior above is really scared to death that he or she cannot be
creative enough to make a practical suggestion to the FASB that the FASB
itself has not already discovered.

This type of review is all
too common and is symptomatic of what the accounting academy has become.
I recall a panel discussion that was organized for an AAA annual meeting
(I believe it was the last time we held it in Washington) to air an
issue that Bill Cooper was animated about at that time -- data sharing
and the bigger problem of research impropriety. One of the panelists was
a scientist from John Hopkins who had just started a research ethics
journal. As part of this program editors of many leading accounting
journals were invited to give their perspectives on the problem of
replication and potential research malfeasance. Of course none thought
there was any problem.

One editor (still an
editor of one of the most prominent journals) responding to the
scientist's contention that the scholarly enterprise is to ultimately
seek knowledge, concurred, but added, (paraphrased, but pretty close)
"An alternative hypothesis is that the academic enterprise is a game
constructed to identify the cleverest people so we know who to give the
money to."

His smirk revealed a great
deal about what he believed to be the silly idea that scholarship was
about knowledge. The reviewer's reply above is evidence that the
hypothesis about an academic game is more believable than one in which
the academic enterprise in accounting has understanding anything as its
objective. And the profession is certainly culpable. It created
professorships and awarded them to the winners of this game. It funded
the JAR conferences. It dropped out of the AAA. This may be because the
profession has never had any great respect for scholarship, at least not
in my lifetime. Medical scholarship is not about creating profit
opportunities for doctors; neither is legal scholarship about creating
profit opportunities for lawyers. Perhaps this is why we now have, as
Ray Chambers opined in his Abacus article in 1999 (just before he passed
away) that we had created vast tomes of incoherent rules "...as if for a
profession of morons."

Question
What's the price for a luxury box seat at the Super Bowl game next month?Hint: It's almost a day's pay for the average CEO.

AnswerSuper Bowl tickets are considered to be among
the hardest tickets in the world to obtain, but as of Tuesday, an online
search engine said there are still more than 2,000 tickets still available
-- for a price, a very high price. A comprehensive search across the Web by
FatLens.com found some tickets ranging all the way from $1,825 for a single
seat to $315,000 for a luxury box.
David Gardner, "Super Bucks Needed For Super Bowl Tix," InformationWeek,
January 24, 2006 ---
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=177103436

AnswerSex sells, and that goes double for sex.com,
one of the most coveted domain names on the Web. Sex.com has been sold by
longtime Internet entrepreneur Gary Kremen, according to an announcement
this week. While the price for the adult entertainment site wasn't
disclosed, the Reuters News Agency said "a source familiar with the deal"
put the price at about $12 million.
W. David Gardner, "Entrepreneur Sells Sex.com," InternetWeek, January
24, 2006 ---
http://www.internetweek.cmp.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=177103304

Question
What is the medical secret to lower blood pressure and less stressful public
speaking, preaching, and presumably lecturing?

Answer: You won't believe it! But I'm all for it!Stuart Brody, a psychologist at Britain's
University of Paisley, compared the impact of different sexual activities on
blood pressure when a person later undergoes a stressful experience. Brody
asked 24 women and 22 men to keep a diary of their sexual activities for two
weeks. The volunteers then underwent a stressful ordeal that involved making
a speech in public and doing mental arithmetic out loud. Volunteers who had
had penetrative sex during the previous week or so had the least stress, and
their blood pressure returned to normal fastest after their test.
"Penetrative sex the answer to speaking nerves," PhysOrg, January 25,
2006 ---
http://physorg.com/news10225.html

Acupuncture Does Combat PainToday, science has found that acupuncture can
effectively combat pain. A study conducted by Hull York Medical School has
revealed that deep-needle acupuncture could deactivate the brain's limbic
system, which is sensitive to pains. This makes the practice anaesthetic.
Experts in neuroscience believe the findings show that acupuncture has a
measurable effect on the brain and that the study could help to explain how
the treatment can relieve pain. The study, which involved a number of
volunteers, will be aired on BBC TV's medical program, Alternative Medicine:
The Evidence.
"Study: Acupuncture Does Combat Pain," PhysOrg, January 25, 2006 ---
http://physorg.com/news10216.html

Please Ask Don't Tell University Ratings of Faculty Who Are Unaware
They Are Being Evaluated
How Productive Is Your Program?U.S. News and the National Research Council
have some new competition in the rankings business — from a business that
takes a very different approach to evaluating universities. In recent weeks,
a company calledAcademic
Analyticshas started selling its research to
universities as a tool for evaluating graduate programs. More than 10
universities have already purchased the service, which promises a better way
to analyze how productive departments are and how they compare to other
departments. The new business is being talked about among graduate deans and
institutional research leaders, but faculty members whose output is being
analyzed are largely unaware of the tool.
Scott Jaschik, "How Productive Is Your Program?" Inside Higher Ed, January
25, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/01/25/analytics

Don't Ask, Don't Tell: Military Discharges HundredsHundreds of officers and health care professionals
have been discharged in the past 10 years under the Pentagon's policy on
gays, a loss that while relatively small in numbers involves troops who are
expensive for the military to educate and train. The 350 or so affected are
a tiny fraction of the 1.4 million members of the uniformed services and
about 3.5 percent of the more than 10,000 people discharged under the "Don't
Ask, Don't Tell" policy since its inception in 1994. But many were military
school graduates or service members who went to medical school at the
taxpayers' expense - troops not as easily replaced by a nation at war that
is struggling to fill its enlistment quotas.
"Don't Ask, Don't Tell: Military Discharges Hundreds," ClickOnDetroit,
January 25, 2006 ---
http://www.clickondetroit.com/family/6425099/detail.html

I disagree with Greenspan on this one. He's always been on the
side of big banking oligopoly.Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan is
opposing a regulatory loophole that allows corporations to own banks,
thrusting himself into the middle of an effort by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to
establish a bank. Mr. Greenspan's salvo, outlined in a 12-page letter to
Congress that was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, is the latest in a
controversy over the separation of commerce and banking. Wal-Mart, the
Bentonville, Ark., retailer, is trying to obtain a state banking charter in
Utah, using precisely the exemption in the banking laws opposed by Mr.
Greenspan.
Bernard Wysocki. Jr.,"Greenspan Opposes Bank Loophole: As Wal-Mart Seeks
Charter, Fed Chairman Aims to End Exemption for Corporations," The Wall
Street Journal, January 26, 2006; Page A3 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113824842537856775.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
Jensen Comment
It was hopeless for Wal-Mart at get go since the banking industry in
Washington DC is all powerful.

The new fee per speech that the U.S. Federal
Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan is expected to comman after he retires his
post on January 31 is $150,000 per speech. Greenspan's current annual salary
is $180,000.Time Magazine, January 30, 2006, Page 19.
Jensen Comment
Do you suppose that if Greenspan did not take the side of the banking
oligopoly on this one he would not longer be invited to speak at banking
conventions?

Who says accountants are dull?
Some Innovative Imaging Things from Arcsoft and Paul Pacter

My good friend Paul Pacter sent me a Happy New Year card from Hong Kong.
In his message he recommended that I look into the Arcsoft DVD Slide Show to
turn digital photographs into files for television.

This prompted me to take a look at the Arcsoft site at
http://www.arcsoft.com/
If you are into pictures and imaging in the slightest way or in a heavy way,
you should take a look at the innovative products from Arcsoft.

Paul over the years has lived in many places and truly is a "seen this,
done that" world traveler. He's also an avid photographer and now
shares many of his great photographs (even from as far away as Tibet) at the
site ---
http://www.whencanyou.com/index.htm

There are also many photographs taken in China.

He's a wonderful person and a terrific accounting standard expert who
worked for both the FASB and the IASB before venturing off to help the
Chinese with accounting standards.

I think of him as a wandering geographer as well. Who says accountants
are dull?

One of the
great things about the switch from film to digital photography
is that it has allowed camera makers to produce models that are
slim enough to fit in a pocket but still take excellent pictures
and come packed with features. Chips and sensors take up much
less room than rolls of film.

But there
are limitations imposed by small, slim camera bodies that even
digital wizardry hasn't been able to overcome. These mainly
involve the lenses. Lenses with better-than-average telescopic
and wide-angle capabilities tend to be too bulky to fit on a
pocket-sized camera body.

Now,
Eastman Kodak has come up with a
concept that promises to make more versatile lenses available on
the slimmest digital cameras. The company has introduced a
pocket-sized camera with two lenses, each designed for different
kinds of shots.

The company's new EasyShare V570 camera couples a fairly
standard lens -- the 3x optical zoom that is typical on
slim digital cameras -- with a second, specialized lens
for taking ultrawide-angle shots. Together, these
all-glass lenses have a 5x optical zooming capability,
unusual in a small camera. A single lens with the
combined range of the V570's two lenses (the equivalent
of 23 millimeters to 117 millimeters) would be too large
for the camera's body. But by splitting the work between
two physically smaller lenses, Kodak has made it fit.

The camera doesn't zoom in any better on distant objects
than most others in its class. But it does do a much
better job of capturing all of a group of people -- or a
building or a landscape -- in a single shot, without
requiring you to move ridiculously far back.

Better yet, the user doesn't need to manually switch
between the lenses, or even to be conscious of them. The
camera's processor merges them into one virtual lens,
and the zooming button on the back automatically
switches lenses as you move from the widest to the most
telescopic setting. An indicator on the screen tells you
if you have switched lenses and are using the ultrawide-angle
one.

Kodak has placed both lenses entirely within the
camera's body. Even when the main lens zooms, it never
protrudes from the camera. Both are protected by a
single built-in lens cover that opens instantly, with a
satisfying snap.

The $399 V570, which has a resolution of 5 megapixels,
isn't a one-shot deal. Kodak plans more small cameras
with multiple lenses that employ digital technology to
make the lenses work smoothly together. While the V570's
twin lenses add capabilities at the wide end of the
zooming range, future models might use multiple lenses
to bolster a camera's telephoto capability. Or one lens
might be devoted to still pictures, while a second might
be optimized for video.

I've been testing the V570, and I like it, despite a
couple of drawbacks. In my tests, I compared it with the
Kodak EasyShare V550, my favorite pocket-sized digital
camera. Like the V550, which costs $349, the new V570
has a handsome black design. But the V570, which is just
4 inches wide by 2 inches high by 0.8 inch thick and
weighs 4.5 ounces, is actually thinner and lighter than
the single-lens V550.

In
my tests, I took numerous shots of people, buildings and
street scenes with the two cameras. In every case, using
the ultrawide-angle lens, the new V570 allowed me to
pack in much more of a given scene from the same
distance. I just pressed the zoom button all the way to
"W."

For instance, a picture of a room on the single-lens
camera captured only some of the furniture and walls.
With the V570, nearly everything got into the shot.
Standing on my driveway taking a picture of my house
with the V550, the attached family room was cut off. But
from the same spot, the V570 picture included both
structures. Where the V550 might get three people in a
shot, the V570 could get five or six.

Telephoto shots came out the same on both cameras.
Picture quality, both on a computer screen and in
printouts, was the same as on the V550, which is very
good.

The zooming experience between the V570's two lenses
isn't perfectly smooth. There's a gap between the two
lenses that's experienced as a brief, but abrupt, jump
in the image on the camera's screen. But I didn't find
this to be a problem.

The 2.5-inch LCD screen on the back of the camera was
sharp and vivid indoors, though it washed out some in
direct sunlight.

But the V570 is missing a couple of valuable features
the V550 includes. First, it has no optical viewfinder,
which allows steadier shooting and is better for framing
shots in situations in which sunlight washes out the
screen. Unfortunately, camera makers are well on their
way to omitting optical viewfinders from most consumer
cameras, claiming that the space they occupy is better
used for bigger screens and that younger shooters never
use them anyway.

Secondly, the V570 has no port for directly connecting
to a computer with the included USB cable. To connect
the camera to a computer, you are forced to use the
included dock, which is a real pain.

Still, if you want a camera with strong wide-angle
capabilities, while preserving small size and normal
telescopic zooming, the V570 might be just the ticket.

German court shuts down Wikipedia.deA German court has ordered the shutdown of the
German-language version of Wikipedia, the multilingual open-access
encyclopedia available on the Internet, after the family of a deceased
hacker filed a lawsuit against Wikimedia Deutschland eV for using the young
man"s full name in an entry . Tron, who spent many of his teen years
hacking, developed working clones of German phone cards, among other things.
He was sentenced to 15 months in jail for theft of a public phone, but the
sentence was later suspended on probation, according to the Wikipedia entry.
In 1998, he died under mysterious circumstances . . . Wouldn"t it be
easier to remove one page instead of shutting down the whole site?
"German court shuts down Wikipedia.de," PhysOrg, January 23, 2006 ---
http://weblog.physorg.com/news4608.html

Jensen Comment
Once again this raises the issue of jurisdiction. Presumably authorities can
shut down a domestic site, but what's to prevent citizens of one country
from simply surfing Wikipedia sites of the world? My guess is that the
information will appear on other sites since anybody in the world can easily
add information to Wikipedia.

And even if Wikipedia could be shut down worldwide, it would be a bit
like shutting down an entire university because one professor or student did
something illegal or shutting down an entire library because it had one
objectionable sentence in one book.

How to detect if digital photographs have been alteredAmong the many temptations of the digital age,
photo-manipulation has proved particularly troublesome for science, and
scientific journals are beginning to respond. Nicholas Wade, "It May Look Authentic; Here's How to Tell It Isn't,"
The New York Times, January 24, 2006 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/24/science/24frau.html

And altered photographs are serious problems in science
The Journal of Cell Biology is using a test that reveals 25 percent of all
accepted manuscripts since 2002 have contained one or more manipulated
illustrations, violating the journal's guidelines, Michael Rossner of
Rockefeller University, the executive editor, told The New York Times. The
editor of the journal, Ira Mellman of Yale, said most cases were resolved
when the authors provided originals. "In 1 percent of the cases we find
authors have engaged in fraud," he said.
"Now you see it; now you think you see it: Some scientific journals
are adopting security measures, including digital photo testing, to halt
manipulation of data by authors engaged in fraud." PhysOrg, January
24, 2006 ---
http://physorg.com/news10176.html

Domestic partners must have sex to get benefitsA requirement within a new domestic partner benefit
plan at the University of Florida — that participants “have been in a
non-platonic relationship for the proceeding 12 months” — has left many
employees feeling like the university was getting a little too personal.
Administrators have taken notice and said that the policy will be changed
within the next two weeks.
Rob Capriccioso, "Too Much Information on Sex at Florida," Inside Higher
Ed, January 24, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/01/24/florida

What book is Osama Bin Laden reading these days?William Blum, a Washington, D.C. writer,
responded delightedly last Thursday on learning that Osama bin Laden had
cited his book in an audiotape. Blum called the mention of Rogue State: A
Guide to the World’s Only Superpower “almost as good as being an Oprah
book,” a reference to the popular American television host whose endorsement
routinely makes a book a bestseller. Daniel Pipes, "Osama's Pen Pal," FrontPage Magazine, January 24,
2006 ---
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21006

Trinity University has been awarded a $100,000
grant from the prestigious Ford Foundation for a project designed to
facilitate constructive dialogue about contentious political, religious,
racial, and cultural issues. Following a national competition, Trinity
and 25 other higher education institutions were selected to receive the
grants as part of Ford Foundation’s Difficult Dialogues
initiative. The initiative was created in response to reports of growing
intolerance and efforts to curb academic freedom at colleges and
universities.

Accountability: A "thorny Subject" to be Taken up by the U.S.
Secretary of Education’s Commission College officials and members of the public are
watching with intense interest — and, in some quarters, trepidation — the
proceedings of the U.S. Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of
Higher Education. Given that interest, the following is a memorandum that
the panel’s chairman, Charles Miller, wrote to its members offering his
thinking about one of its thorniest subjects: accountability.
Charles Miller, "Memo From the Chairman," Inside Higher Ed, January
24, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/01/24/miller

The Sad, Sad State of Corruption in MexicoIn 2005, a survey conducted by Transparency
International showed that between 31 and 45% of Mexicans had someone in
their family forced to pay a bribe to a public official in the past year.
Corruption is an endemic aspect of Mexican government. Extending from the
local police who routinely shake down people who commit minor infractions
for cash all the way to top government officials who habitually cut deals
with political cronies and drug traffickers to shape Mexican law. After
endless decades, this culture of corruption has taken its toll. Over 20% of
the Mexican population lives in poverty, only 62% of people have access to
clean drinking water, 25% of the economy is illegal, and in the oil rich
state of Chiapas; 40% of all homes have dirt floors and 21% have no
electricity. All in a country with a $1 trillion gross domestic product.
Justin Darr, "America Versus Mexico's Ponzi Pyramid Scheme," GOPUSA,"
January 24, 2006 ---
http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/guest/2006/jd_01241.shtml

Mexican Army Invades U.S. BorderMexican soldiers and civilian smugglers had an
armed standoff with nearly 30 U.S. law enforcement officials on the Rio
Grande in Texas on Monday afternoon, according to Texas police and the FBI.
Mexican military Humvees were towing what appeared to be thousands of pounds
of marijuana across the border into the United States, said Chief Deputy
Mike Doyal, of the Hudspeth County Sheriff's Department. Mexican Army troops
had several mounted machine guns on the ground more than 200 yards inside
the U.S. border -- near Neely's Crossing, about 50 miles east of El Paso --
when Border Patrol agents called for backup. Hudspeth County deputies and
Texas Highway patrol officers arrived shortly afterward, Doyal said.
Sara A. Carter and Kenneth Todd Ruiz, "Police face Mexican military,
smugglers Armed standoff along U.S. border," Daily Bulletin, January
24, 2006 ---
http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_3430815
Jensen Comment
In its favor, the Mexican Army also rushed troops to Mississippi to
seriously help clean up some of the Katrina mess in Mississippi.

The Sad, Sad State of Corruption After KatrinaThe FBI has uncovered fraud by public officials
in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and has created a task force to investigate
corruption as federal money pours into the Gulf Coast region, Mississippi's
top agent said Monday. "We are seeing public officials facilitating some of
the fraud," John G. Raucci, agent in charge in Mississippi, said in an
interview with The Associated Press. "It's not widespread, I will say that,
but we have seen it and we have begun addressing it."
"FBI Uncovers Post-Katrina Fraud," ABC News, January 23, 2006 ---
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1533999

Where does criminal money go? To the laundry!An international money manager who catered to
wealthy criminals in New York and around the globe has been nabbed for
allegedly laundering a stunning $1 billion his clients accumulated doing
everything from stock fraud to peddling the "date-rape" drug. Martin
Tremblay, 43, billed his Bahamas-based Dominion Investments as a legitimate
company offering "expertise" in "international tax planning, asset
protection and other wealth preservation techniques." But, according to the
feds, Tremblay, a Canadian citizen, lined his pockets by servicing an...
"MONEY MAN LAUNDERED $1B: FEDS," New York Post, January 24, 2006 ---
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/62159.htm

The Washington Post blog turned out to not be politically correctThe Washington Post shut down one of its blogs
Thursday after the newspaper's ombudsman raised the ire of readers by
writing that lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave money to the Democrats as well as
to Republicans.
"Paper Shutters Blog After Ombudsman Post," Breitbart, January 19, 2006 ---
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/01/19/D8F82TA80.html

Barf Alert: CNN reports Osama bin Laden's tape may be a GOP
conspiracyJust before reading e-mailed responses to his
“Cafferty Files” question of the 4pm EST hour on Thursday afternoon's The
Situation Room on CNN, “How important is the new Osama bin Laden tape?",
Jack Cafferty proposed a conspiracy existed in the timing, one meant to help
Bush justify his NSA wiretapping: “The last time we got a tape from Osama
bin Laden was right before the 2004 presidential election. Now here we are,
four days away from hearings starting in Washington into the wiretapping of
America's telephones without bothering to get a court order or a warrant,
and up pops another
"CNN's Cafferty Sees Conspiracy Helpful to Bush Behind Timing of Osama
Tape," Free Republic, January 20, 2006 ---
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1561548/posts
Also see
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=11746

Sony Reader: The New eBook AlternativeElectronic books have traditionally gone
straight from the manufacturer to the remainders bin -- but the market has
never gone away entirely, despite years of tepid sales and failed
predictions. Now a new device from Sony is generating buzz worthy of a
Stephen King novel. Some people are even wondering whether the Sony Reader
might be just the ticket to kick the e-book market into high gear.
Dylan Tweney, "Screening the Latest Bestseller," Wired News, January
24, 2006 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70039-0.html?tw=wn_tophead_13

I've been watching companies' efforts to
develop e-book offerings for a long time. As a quadriplegic, I can't
hold a book, so reading literature on the computer seems like an obvious
solution.

Alas, companies like Microsoft, Adobe and Palm
have failed in their e-book endeavors. They've introduced proprietary,
encrypted formats that require their respective software to be installed
before reading them, in effect destroying a book's inherent
characteristic: portability.

Amazon seems to be on the brink of doing
e-books right, and I'm keeping my proverbial fingers crossed. By taking
advantage of the web's ubiquity, Amazon can restore portability: Pay
once, read anywhere.

In November, Amazon announced two new services
for accessing books online. The company seems to be targeting
programmers and students who would welcome freedom from toting enormous
texts. But Amazon has another, perhaps unforeseen, set of customers: the
disabled.

Amazon Pages will allow readers to buy online
access to individual pages and chapters from books instead of the entire
thing, presumably for a few cents a page. Amazon Upgrade will let
readers purchase, for a similar premium, perpetual access to an online
digital copy of the text.

If the services turn out to be as good as they
sound, I plan on taking full advantage of them. I miss the comforting
sensation of curling up with a good book at night, promising myself that
I would only read one more chapter before becoming so engrossed in the
story that I devour it whole and am barely aware of the fact that, as my
eyelids are closing, the sun is rising on the next day.

It truly is the little things in life that make
it worth living.

The joy of holding a book again won't be
happening in the next year, but Amazon's proposed services, assuming
they are well implemented, will reopen the boundless horizons of
literature to me and other similarly disabled readers.

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, told Fox
News that publishers will decide whether their books will be included in
the programs, unlike Google Print, which requires publishers to opt out.
Among the publishers I'm rooting for are Penguin Group and Tor. (So,
give Mr. Bezos a call. Today. Please? The Shadowrun and The Wheel of
Time series, among others, beckon.)

The Amazon services should allow publishers to
have their content available as plain text, as do niche sites such as
The National Academies Press, InformIT's Safari and Safari's predecessor
site, MacMillan's Personal Bookshelf (an all-time favorite, now
deceased, that allowed me to learn a lot for free).

Continued in article

January 26, 2005 reply from Helen Terry

Bob,

Also, take a look at this gadget for reading
(from BoingBoing), then to the link:

Now there's Thumb Thing to help the teacher
with not enough hands. This unique patented book holder fits on the
thumb like a ring and spreads the pages of the book open. Perfect
for reading while while holding the book in one hand!

Although the Thumb Thing is manufactured in
4 different sizes, we carry only the "S" size which fits students
and even most teachers. If you need them, the other 3 sizes are
available from other sources (at higher prices), including many
museums and specialty stores.

Viagra has unwanted popups (or are they downers?)Those little (RFID)
tracking tags that infuriate watchdog groups are taking hold in yet another
place of business -- your local pharmacy. Last week, Pfizer announced that
it will combat counterfeiters by sticking radio-frequency ID tags on large
bottles of Viagra. Pfizer follows on the heels of Purdue Pharma, which began
tagging every 100-tablet bottle of the painkiller OxyContin in 2004.
Randy Dotinga, "Viagra Tag Could Be Bitter Pill," Wired News, January
21, 2006 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70033-0.html?tw=wn_tophead_20

Quantum Computing Steps ForwardWith the University of Michigan’s latest production
of a quantum chip, it’s another step forward for quantum computers that will
someday dwarf the abilities of today’s machines.
"Quantum Computing Steps Forward," PhysOrg, January 20, 2006 ---
http://www.physorg.com/news10079.html

NHN: The Little Search Engine That Could in Korea Now, Maybe the World
Later On
Why is Naver so popular? One reason is that Naver can deliver more relevant
search results than Google can, at least on its home turf. A simple Google
search will return only certain kinds of Web pages, and a user needs to
click another link to find, say, related images or news stories. NHN offers
a mix of categories including blogs and community sites unless the user
specifies a particular kind of document. A Naver search for a subway
station, for instance, will return a map, information on the subway line
serving the station, connecting bus lines, restaurants and shops near the
station, blog entries mentioning it, and more. "Google has a superb search
engine," says Choi Jae Hyeon, NHN's search chief. "We have, however, built
up knowhow and a database by extracting knowledge from users' brains."
"NHN: The Little Search Engine That Could: Korea's NHN thumps
Google at home, and it's teaching the big dogs a new trick," Business
Week, January 30, 2006 ---
http://snipurl.com/BusWeekNHN
Also see
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050110-112510
Also see
http://theseoultimes.com/ST/?url=/ST/db/read.php?idx=1401

NHN also has a desktop search utility
NHN's desktop search, a free software that puts an icon on the task bar of
Microsoft's Windows operating system, allows people to scan their computers
for information in the same way they use Naver to search the Web. The
software, which works on Windows 98 and versions above, may be downloaded at
http://jump.naver.com/desk .

The most overvalued housing marketsSixty-five of the nation's 299 biggest real estate
markets are severely overpriced and subject to possible price corrections.
That's according to the latest (third quarter) Housing Market Analysis
conducted by National City Corp, a financial holding company, in conjunction
with Global Insight, a financial information provider.
Less Christie, "Most overvalued housing markets," CNN Money, January
3, 2006 ---
http://money.cnn.com/2005/12/29/real_estate/buying_selling/handicapping_housing_markets/

Jensen Comment
The above site has a comparison calculator where you read in your salary and
then compare costs where you live versus where you are thinking about
moving. Alas, they forgot to include most of the states in northern
New England. I gues we're not big enough to count.

Search Engines Losing Trust (except for Google)The biggest potential fallout from America Online,
Microsoft MSN and Yahoo handing over search data to the U.S. Justice
Department without a fight is the loss of trust. How can they expect people
who use their services to trust them with personal information when they so
quickly give the government what it wants? The only exception out of the
four major search engines is Google, which has vowed to force government
prosecutors to go to court and prove that they have a right to this data. So
we don't confuse what's going on here, this has nothing to do with the Bush
administration's fight against terrorism, or national security.
Antone Gonsalves, "Search Engines Losing Trust," InternetWeek,
January 23, 2006 ---
http://www.internetweek.cmp.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=177102482

Physics and Mechanics of Early CellsTo grow viable organs in the lab, biologists are
going beyond the genetics of development to study the physics and mechanics
of cells in the early embryo
Kate Greene, "Printing Blood Vessels," MIT's Technology Review,
January 20, 2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/BioTech/wtr_16168,306,p1.html

Big Brother is Watching You if You're a Porn Seeker OnlineYahoo has acknowledged that it handed over
search data to comply with a subpoena from the Bush administration, which is
trying to revive an anti-porn law that was rejected by the U.S. Supreme
Court. Google was also subpoenaed by the Justice Department, but refused to
comply.
Antone Gonsalves,"A Privacy Warning," InternetWeek Newsletter,
January 20, 2006
See
http://www.internetweek.cmp.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=177101988
Jensen Comment
Google is resisting handing over the data, but this is one Google may lose.

A VAT tax proposal of sorts in New HampshireIn New Hampshire, a sales tax is proposed that
was designed to protect the quantity and quality of state water supplies.
The tax would affect beverages sold for resale in the state, to be paid by
the product manufacturers and distributors. The tax would be 2 cents on
containers up to, and including one gallon, and 5 cents for a container over
one gallon, the Portmouth Herald reported."Cities, States Float Sales Tax Ideas," AccountingWeb, January
20, 2006 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=101681
Jensen Comment
New Hampshire has no sales or state income tax due to a history of not
voting in new taxes. It would be surprising if this proposed tax not
collected from consumers will fly.

Remember those rousing days--amid the acrid
havoc of 9/11--when all the world stood by us, and even the French were
knocked off course enough to say, "We Are All American"? Of course you
do, if only to contrast that time with the months and years that
followed, when less of the world stood by us, and when the
French--coming to their exquisite senses--rediscovered their contempt
for America.

Today in France there are few persons of
substance who profess a love for America. Jean-François Revel, the
country's finest political philosopher, is one, on the right; and
Bernard-Henri Lévy--whose practice of a journalism larded with
philosophy has made him better known to the man-on-the-rue than anyone
else who can spout Wittgenstein--is another, on the center-left. There
are five other prominent French Amerophiles, by my reckoning, giving us
a grand total of seven. Guessing identities would make an amusing parlor
game. (Answers on a postcard, with a bottle of Calvados for the first
all-correct missive. Hint: There are no women.)

Of these seven, Bernard-Henri Lévy is the most
complex, the most complexed and, by far, the most flamboyant. He is, in
an old-fashioned way, a fine ambassador, kissing ladies on the hand, and
using his French accent to impish effect (such as in his insistence on
pronouncing the name Sulzberger, of New York Times fame, as "Sulz-bare-zhay").
He also has a connection (albeit of sorrowful source) with The Wall
Street Journal, being the author of "Who Killed Daniel Pearl?"--a
courageous, if somewhat eccentric, investigation into the murder in
Pakistan of a young Journal reporter.

Mr. Lévy has a new book out--not so much an
investigation, this time, as an inquiry. His latest project has been to
follow in the footsteps of Alexis de Tocqueville and travel through the
United States in the manner of the author of "Democracy in America." The
world being what it is, the result was never likely to be an update of
Tocqueville. Instead, we have what might fairly be described as
"Bernard-Henri Lévy in America." The author has called it "American
Vertigo"--not a bad name, as it speaks to America's vertigo, as well as
to his own--and the literary poobahs in Paris have their culottes in a
twist over his decision to bypass France and publish it in America
first, in English. Much harrumphing has happened in Paris, much talk of
betrayal; but Mr. Lévy--who in a conversation with New York magazine
this week laid out his love for America in terms that were almost
pornographic--regards the book as his gift to this country: "It had to
be published here first," he says, with an upward tilt of a nose so
aquiline one might hang a hat on it. "Unquestionably."

Given that transferring songs from one’s
computer to an iPod device can sometimes be a hassle, this latest
application will be most helpful for persons in such a predicament. With
this application, visitors can also use such features as a built-in
search engine to locate various songs, an export playlist function, and
functionality in three languages, including German and Spanish. This
version is compatible with all computers running Windows 2000 and XP.

Oprah's Truth Is No Stranger to FictionOprah Winfrey has thrown her support behind
memoirist James Frey, whose Number One bestseller, "A Million Little
Pieces"--a vivid recollection of his drug and alcohol addictions, crimes
against humanity and recovery--turns out on a sliding scale to run from
false to faulty. Mr. Frey's literally incredible life was exposed recently
by a Web site, the Smoking Gun. Respondeth Oprah, and legions of Mr. Frey's
readers: Who cares?
Daniel Henninger, "Oprah's Truth Is No Strange to Fiction: How 1968
brought us to James Frey," The Wall Street Journal, January 20, 2006 ---
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/dhenninger/?id=110007837

Tony B. is almost as much of a spendthrift as George B.Britain's road to economic ruin under Tony Blair
and Gordon Brown is nearly complete. Next year the U.K. government will
spend more as a percentage of GDP than its German counterpart for the first
time in a generation -- 45.7%, according to OECD estimates. That's up from
37.5% in 2000 and surpasses Germany's figure of 45%, which has been falling.
Next in Labour's sights is France. Paris spends around 53% of GDP but --
contrary to London -- is talking about cutting back in the coming years.
Alex Story, "Welcome to the Club of Losers," The Wall Street Journal,
January 20, 2006 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113770980223951245.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep

2006 graphic cards debut new technologyAt the start of 2006 creating an
imageusing computer technologies has taken on
entirely new methods. Where once artists, engineers and video-game designers
worried about decreasing the size of available pixels to be able to create a
fairly realistic model, concerns have shifted. Computer-processing
technologies, which once had to be taken into careful account before placing
too heavy a graphical load upon them, have advanced.
Graphic cardshave stepped up to assist with these tasks thanks to
onboard
processorscapable of handling the massive
computations required. Where once the focus was on making a mostly realistic
character model for a game, the current task is to recreate as realistic a
world as possible: light, physics, movement, and reactions, as well as
character models.
"2006 graphic cards debut new technology," PhysOrg, January 19, 2006
---
http://www.physorg.com/news10042.html

Miss America Contest: They're Now American CowgirlsNow, the 85-year-old pageant is trying to reinvent
itself, moving to a glitzy Las Vegas casino, modifying its format to
heighten the drama, and signing a long-term deal to be broadcast on the
country-music cable channel CMT. And it has hired a high-profile host: actor
James Denton, who plays the handsome plumber-neighbor on ABC's "Desperate
Housewives."
Sam Schechner, "Miss America Goes Country: Pageant Ends Up on CMT With
'Desperate' Twist; Stephen King's Phobia," The Wall Street Journal,
January 20, 2006; Page W2 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113771810871751449.html?mod=todays_us_weekend_journal

Forwarded by Denny Beresford (who predates
dirt)

History Exam

DON'T
CHEAT AND LOOK AT THE BOTTOM FOR THE ANSWERS!!!

Everyone over 40 should have a pretty easy time at this exam. If you
are under 40 you can claim a handicap.

This is a History Exam for those who don't mind seeing how much they!
really remember about what went on in their life. Get paper and pencil and
number from 1 to 20.
Write the letter of each answer and score at the end.
Then, best of all, before you pass this test on, put your score in the
subject line!

1. In the 1940's, where were automobile headlight dimmer switches located?
a. On the floor shift knob
b. On the floor board, to the left of the clutch
c. Next to the horn

2. The bottle top of a Royal Crown Cola bottle had holes in it. For what
was it used?
a. Capture lightning bugs
b. To sprinkle! clothes before ironing
c. Large salt shaker

7. Which was a popular candy when you were a kid?
a. Strips of dried peanut butter
b. Chocolate licorice bars
c. Wax coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar ! water inside

8. How was Butch wax used?
a. To stiffen a flat-top haircut so it stood up
b. To make floors shiny and prevent scuffing
c. On the wheels of roller skates to prevent rust

9. Before inline skates, how did you keep your roller skates attached to
your shoes?
a With clamps, tightened by a skate key
b. Woven straps that crossed the foot
c. Long pieces of twine

10. As a kid, what was considered the best way to reach a decision?
a. Consider all the facts
b. Ask Mom
c. Eeny-meeny-miney-mo

11. What was the most dreaded disease in the 1940's?
a. Smallpox
b. AIDS
c. Polio

12. "I'll be down to get you in a ________, Honey"
a. SUV
b. Taxi
c. Streetcar

13. What was the name of Caroline Kennedy's pet pony?
a. Old Blue
b. Paint
c.. Macaroni

14. What was a Duck-and-Cover Drill?
a. Part of the game of hide and seek
b What you did when your Mom called y! ou in to do chores
c. Hiding under your desk, and covering your head with your arms in an
A-bomb drill.

15. What was the name of the Indian Princess on the Howdy Doody show?
a. Princess Summerfallwinterspring
b. Princess Sacajawea
c. Princess Moonshadow

16. What did all the really savvy students d o when mimeographed tests
were handed out in school?
a. Immediately sniffed the purple ink, as this was believed to get you
high
b.. Made paper airplanes to see who could sail theirs out the window
c. Wrote another pupil's name on the top, to avoid their failure

17. Why did your Mom shop in stores that gave Green Stamps with purchases?
a. To keep you out of mischief by licking the backs, which tasted like
bubble gum
b. They could be put in special books and redeemed for various household
items
c. They were given to the kids to be used as stick-on tattoos